Product Reviews

Adobe has once again released a beta version of Lightroom, its Raw manipulation tool for photographers, for public download. The beta will function for the full term of the beta program (that is, until Lightroom 2 is released) for registered owners of Lightroom, and for 30 days for everyone else. Bear in mind that this is early release software, so it's not stable and should not be used for your important work.

There are many enhancements here, from tighter Photoshop integration and selective editing to more streamlined import controls. Above all, Lightroom 2 simplifies its core task of managing, organising and dealing with your images.

The Library module, where Lightroom catalogues and stores your images, has been improved through a cleaner set of panels - three, rather than the previous six - making for better at-a-glance selection. You can now create sets of collections and choose which of them to import pictures into, so you could, for example, have one for product photography, one for location work, one for holidays and so on. You can also import images directly into specified modules, such as a slideshow; a custom icon clearly indicates the nature of the resulting collection.

Sorting and finding images is greatly eased by Smart Collections, which allow you to build automatic sets of images that match certain criteria - just like Smart Folders in Mac OS X. Searching for images produces a directory tree structure, where the search can be refined by date, camera, lens, location, flash state, shutter speed and so on.

All terms are user definable, and any settings built up here can be saved as a preset for reuse. Searching for keywords, text or metadata allows you to drill down through the mass of images to find exactly

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the right one quickly and easily. Applying keywords to images is augmented by a 'suggested keywords' panel, which includes keywords you've already defined. It may not be rocket science, but it does greatly speed up the process.

Lightroom 2 now supports multiple monitors, so you can keep a thumbnail view on one and open images for editing on the other. A neat twist here is that this can be used by single monitor users, too - pressing the button will pop open a floating display on top of your current window, showing the view set as if for a second monitor.

A great new feature is the ability to adjust an image selectively. A Retouch tool allows you to paint on adjustments for exposure, brightness, saturation and clarity using a resizeable feathered brush. As this is Lightroom, these actions are fully editable and can be adjusted or removed at any time. The process is a little tricky to handle at present, but this is still an early beta.

Moving an image from Lightroom to Photoshop is also very much more streamlined. Previously, Lightroom had to write a .psd or .tif file in order to accomplish this; now, images from Lightroom can be switched directly into Photoshop. Once there, they appear as Smart Objects, which means that double-clicking them within Photoshop will open them back in Lightroom for further editing. Multiple images can be opened in High Dynamic Range format, or as panoramas; multiple files can be opened in Photoshop as layers within a single document.

Print packaging is enhanced with new modules for laying out and ordering multiple print sizes on a single sheet of paper, and exporting images to Jpeg and other formats is quicker and more controllable.

Lightroom is stuffed full of keyboard shortcuts, including + and - for adjusting exposure, L to 'dim the lights' and concentrate on your image or thumbnails, V to show a greyscale view of the image, and many more. Because there's no text module, most shortcuts work with a single key alone, with no Command or Alt key modifier required.

This beta version of Lightroom 2 is a well organised and thought-out application. Its slick interface is now easier to navigate than ever, and Photoshop integration is tight and effective. The addition of editable, brush-on selective adjustment puts Lightroom way out in front of similar programs.